One Way to Life
by Ilerre
Summary: Bruce Banner never had friends.


**Pairing:** Steve/Tony

**Disclaimer:** I don't own The Avengers.

**Rating:** nc17/18

**Beta: **General16

**Note:** I am writing part 4 of the Newborn serie, if you have suggestions, things you would like to see, ideas; feel free to share :)

**Summary:** Bruce Banner never had friends.

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Bruce Banner never had friends.

He was always the lonely kid on the playground, watching others having fun from afar. His mother was too weak, his father had long ago subdued her into submissiveness. He couldn't talk to them and they never understood.

He was too smart, too introvert, too strange. A freak.

Then came the Hulk. The monster.

Then…everything changed.

He met the Avengers, got to be a _part of_ the Avengers. For once in his life he belonged somewhere. Into this group of mismatched people, ill fitted into life, odd and abnormal alone, but strong and invincible together.

And he met Tony Stark.

His first friend.

It was almost a given that he would fall in love with the first person in his life that ever showed him interest and care, that offered friendship and companionship without asking anything in return.

It was a given.

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Looking at himself in the mirror, trying to get his curly hair to behave, Bruce tried to calm his nerves by taking deep breaths and releasing them slowly through his nose.

He'd been living in the Avengers Tower with Tony and the other for nine months by then, and he had finally managed to get a grip on himself had decided to ask Tony out that very night.

Tony was everything he could wish for in a lover; he was intelligent, funny, brilliant, compassionate and affectionate. He cared for the people around him, and was always there for every one of them.

Bruce relished the times spent in the lab with the man he admired. He could spend hours listening to Tony talk about his new projects or just watching him work silently on his machines.

Tony was everything he had ever wished for.

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He didn't make a sound.

He was sure he'd lost his voice at the sight.

He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to talk again. Or breathe.

Tony's eyes…those deep pool of blue were so full of happiness and love when Steve kissed him, that Bruce couldn't fault the soldier for wanting that look directed at him.

He felt his heart shatter.

He should have seen it. He'd lived with all of them for nine long, peaceful months. He should've seen when Steve and Tony had started flirting and talking more than usual, when they'd spent more time together. Dating, kissing… Tony should have told him.

The Hulk shivered under his skin but he shushed him quickly.

He could understand. He really could.

Steve wasn't stupid, even if he was the most undereducated of them all, even if he was literally from another time; you didn't have to be a specialist physicist on Gamma rays to see how wonderful Tony was. How beautiful and gorgeous he was; be it physically or intellectually.

Bruce could understand. Really.

He just wished he'd been quicker and braver.

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They revealed their relationship two weeks after Bruce saw them kiss.

They'd been dating for six months and had been a bit wary about revealing the truth earlier. They wanted to make it work. They wanted it to last.

Bruce felt his heart crumble a bit more when Tony looked at him with sparkly, happy eyes, telling him with a sweet smile how in love he was for the first time in his life.

Bruce had never seen him so content, so calm.

Steve grounded him. He managed to make Tony slow down and keep his bouts of craziness to a minimum. He made Tony smile and laugh. He convinced Tony to stop drinking, and eat and sleep more regularly.

Bruce looked at them from afar.

He was the lonely kid on the playground all over again.

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Tony was shifting nervously, twisting his hands more than usual, rocking on his heels and kept giving Bruce these sideway glances. He didn't look Bruce directly in the eyes, like he did when he was uneasy or nervous.

Tony stepped closer to Bruce's lab desk and took a deep breath. "Steve asked me to marry him yesterday," he finally said in a rush, blushing and smiling. "I—we would like to know if—if you could be my best man?"

Bruce stared at the blank screen of his computer, his hold on the Hulk so flimsy he was scared to lose it and lash out at Tony. It took a long moment for him to answer and it must have been way too long, because Tony was looking at him with anxious and sorrowful eyes. "I understand if you—"

Bruce waved a hand and smiled, laughing slightly. "No, no, I'm just shocked." At Tony's surprised stare he managed to continue. "I mean…who would have thought the great Tony Stark was the marrying type?"

Just as that, Tony's anxiousness faded, leaving a radiant and blissful smile in its wake. "I know!" he exclaimed. "I never thought I'd find someone like Steve. He's just—"

Bruce was smiling, but on the inside the Hulk was screaming. "He's perfect for you. He's the most qualified to take care of you."

Tony chuckled and pursed his lips with a bashful shrug. "I can take care of myself," he said a bit petulantly.

Bruce hummed and closed his eyes briefly. "Of course. Nevertheless, I can't see anyone more perfect for you."

It killed him.

Right here and there he felt himself dying.

Standing behind Tony when Steve gently put a golden ring on Tony's finger, and gave his new husband a deep, loving kiss…That was nearly the last drop.

He couldn't understand how he was still possibly moving and breathing.

Not after watching the man he loved and cherished marry another, Steve, the man he quickly came to hate.

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Tony had tears of joy in his eyes when he unconsciously delivered the final blow.

Bruce had never seen him so purely _happy_ before.

"Bruce, I'm pregnant!"

He didn't think he heard the end of Tony's words. He just saw Tony's hands on his belly, then a great flash of green, and Tony was flying through the lab's glass wall.

The others were quick to arrive, and the Hulk was the one who saw Steve take Tony in his arms, eyes panicked and terrified, Tony's screams of terror and agony echoing throughout the entire tower.

Much, much, much, later, confined in SHILED's cage designed to contain the Hulk on the Hellicarrier, Bruce was told Tony's abdomen had been perforated by a piece of glass. He lost the baby almost immediately and they had to remove his shredded uterus.

He would never be able to carry a baby ever again.

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Steve's face was unlike anything Bruce had seen. He looked _old_. Aged, tired, stretched too thin. The soldier sat boneless on the chair facing the containment chamber and rubbed his face his weariness so heavy Bruce could almost feel it in his own bones.

His dull blue eyes—so unlike Tony's sparkling ones—were bloodshot and dry, as if he didn't have any more tears to shed. Bruce thought seeing Captain America crying must be a sight to behold.

Steve took a shaky breath and linked his hands behind his neck, his head between his spread knees. "They—" He cleared his raw throat and tried again. "They had to sedate Tony. He couldn't calm down anymore. He…he tried to hurt himself. He clawed his belly and ripped out some stitches."

Bruce shifted toward the glass wall and looked closer at Steve. "Is he okay?" he asked. Tony was important to him. He needed to know. He loved him.

Steve took a shaky breath and stood, still looking at the ground. He walked toward the glass wall and finally lifted his head, looking straight at Bruce. "No, Bruce. You killed his baby. He'll never be okay again."

Bruce reeled back at the hatred he could hear in the Captain's voice. "But I never meant to hurt him!" he defended himself. "I love him," he growled, hitting the glass wall with his palm. "I fucking love him and you took him away from me!"

Steve nodded and raked a badly shaking hand through his hair. "I know. I saw the looks you sent Tony, I saw how difficult it was for you to stand at our marriage. And I'm…_sorry_," he gritted out through clenched teeth, unable to look Bruce in the eyes, "I'm so sorry we broke your heart. But Tony doesn't love you. At least, not in the way you wanted him to."

Bruce glared. "You took him away from me," he hissed.

Steve's face crumbled. "You killed our baby, Bruce," he sobbed. He took a hasty step back and rubbed his face with a groan. "Christ, Bruce, _you killed our baby_!" he yelled.

Bruce looked away and shook his head. "He shouldn't have angered me," he answered calmly.

Steve looked at him in disbelief. "Bruce…_what the hell_ happened to you? Don't you feel remorse over what you did? You almost killed Tony! He nearly didn't make it! He won't ever be able to carry a child!"

Bruce shot Steve a venomous look. "Good then," he spat, "he shouldn't carry a child that isn't mine!"

Steve gaped in shock. "Who are you?" he whispered. "I can't recognize you, _I just can't_."

Bruce stalked back to the glass wall and leaned menacingly toward Steve. "I don't have anything left, you stole everything from me! You stole what was mine! That's who I am now! I don't have anything left! And if I can make you suffer half as much as I have, then I'll do it again without as much as blinking!"

Steve had been backing away from Bruce during his tirade and only stopped when his back hit the exit door. "How could you do that to the man you loved?" he asked faintly. "Tony never hurt you. _He loved you_. You were his friend."

Bruce snorted. "At the end," he said calmly, "they always leave me. Tony's no different. At least now…he'll never forget me."

Bruce's mad laughter haunted Steve on the way back to the Avengers quarters, where he knelt down in front of the toilet and emptied his stomach's contents into it.

Steve knew he'd never forget that laughter, overlaid with Tony's desperate pleadings and screams of pain.

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They never knew if it was a girl or a boy. They'd refused to find out beforehand, and then, later, the remains had been too damaged to be able to determine the sex.

Tony knew in his heart that it had been a boy.

They named him Gabriel, like the Angel, and they buried him next to Tony's mother. Maria would protect their son and take care of him until they could join him.

Steve held Tony during the ceremony and the burial.

He promised himself to never let go, and never stop loving him. _Them_.

Steve swore on everything he'd ever believed, and he promised his son.

He would never stop loving or stop taking care of Tony.

Ever.

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End file.
